Microsoft recently overhauled its SkyDrive cloud service with a brand new look and fancy feature updates, but one policy that remains is that users are not allowed to upload full or partially nude photos or drawings, a restriction that applies to both public and private folders. It's unclear how actively Microsoft scans private folders for what it deems to be inappropriate content, but as far as the fine print is concerned, SkyDrive's upload policy is one of the most restrictive around.

Microsoft has updated its SkyDrive cloud service with a fresh coat of paint, modern digs, and taught it all new dance moves on the Web and desktop, the company announced today. SkyDrive.com now features instant search, a contextual toolbar, thumbnail multi-select, drag-and-drop organization, and HTML5 sorting, though those aren't the only improvements Microsoft made to its cloud service.

Microsoft has begun the process of updating the SkyDrive apps for Windows and Mac that it launched last month, the company announced Wednesday. Expected to take a week or so to reach everyone, these updates to the preview versions of SkyDrive for Windows and Mac feature a number of improvements and bug fixes.

Freemium cloud storage service Dropbox today announced “a whole new way” of sharing files, which it says makes it ridiculously “easy to share your stuff from the web, your computer, or mobile device.” To be honest, though, the said feature is far from being novel (perhaps Dropbox is happy about beating Leonardo da Vinci to the punch). While unprecedented it most definitely isn’t, you’re likely to find it very useful. Hit the jump for more.

The new SkyDrive features added late last week were, apparently, just the tip of the iceberg; today, Microsoft unleashed a new and improved preview version of its cloud-storage service that adds local SkyDrive clients, default Live Mesh-like functionality, the ability to pay for extra storage and more. Heads-up for existing users, though; your SkyDrive allotment could shrink from its current 25GB down to just 7GB if you don't act fast.

Microsoft's Metro-ified vision of the future relies heavily on users being able to access files and user settings no matter what Windows 8 device they're logged into. The SkyDrive cloud service will (obviously) be a large part of that cohesion. Gearing up for that, the SkyDrive team announced a handful of new features for the service. It's not the unlimited storage space for docs and photos that has long been rumored, but the changes are good ones nonetheless.

With 25GB of absolutely no strings attached free storage, SkyDrive has always been an amazing value. Of course that’s not to say its best in class, far from it actually for one key reason; it’s painfully difficult to access. Logging into the SkyDrive site using Windows Live is easy enough, but having to add files one at a time is painfully in-efficient. If you modify a photo for example, you need to download it fully, make your changes, upload the new version, and then manually delete the old one. Office Web Apps integration and batch file adding have helped, but it is still no substitute for Dropbox. If the rumors are correct though, this could all be changing soon. Both paid storage, along with Windows and OS X clients are apparently just around the corner.

Microsoft always seemed a little embarrassed by SkyDrive, its online file storage and sharing tool. It was shoved off in the corner, not integrated with other products where it might be useful. Then today Redmond dropped a huge HTML5-centric update on us that makes SkyDrive more than usable. It’s actually kind of good.

No matter where you choose to do your cloud computing these days, September is off to a rough start. First Google Doc’s is knocked offline for over an hour on Wednesday, and Microsoft followed suit on Friday, falling off the grid for close to three hours. Microsoft’s service disruption impacted several free services such as Hotmail and Skydrive, but also premium offerings including Office 365.

Among a host of other things, Microsoft is also a veteran of the cloud storage game. Its SkyDrive cloud storage service has been around for almost four years now, during which time over 100 million people have tried it. But Microsoft admittedly sees plenty of room for improvement. To this end, it has given an HTML5 makeover to its cloud storage service.